I am incredibly proud of the folks in the photo below: the graduates of our very first Passive House Retrofit Expert class. We had a brilliant, mixed cohort of tradespersons, designers, and even technical homeowners from across Australia and New Zealand step up to tackle this challenge.
And it is a massive challenge. We all know the stats about our existing housing stock much of it is cold, damp, and profoundly unhealthy. Fixing these thermal wrecks is the biggest opportunity facing our industry over the next decade, but let’s be honest: retrofitting is significantly harder than building new. You have to diagnose the patient before you can cure them. Get the physics wrong particularly with internal insulation and you risk rotting the framing out from under the new lining.
That is why specialized training is so critical, and why the results of this first cohort are so encouraging. The cherry on top? 100% of the students who sat the notoriously tough Passive House Institute retrofit exam passed it. These exams are very difficult by design. It proves that our new “no homework” approach tackling the complex analysis and planning together during class time worked out perfectly.
A massive thank you to everyone who took the course and made this first run a reality. I loved teaching this group, but frankly, I learned just as much from you. The debates, shared experiences, and deep technical discussions we had were absolute gold.
Congratulations to you all. It is inspiring to know we have this caliber of professionals out there executing EnerPHit projects and doing the hard stuff right.
Now get back out there we have a lot of houses to fix.